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I'm pretty sure the point is to look snazzy in still life photos with an antique watch and a map.
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Nov 5, 2013 16:00
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aliencowboy posted:I got the 105 because it's nice and small for shooting concerts with. It's actually substantially lighter than my 50 1.2 that I usually use. Oh yeah it's super compact and light, so people at venues with focal length restrictions often let it through. And it's sharp wide open.
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Nov 14, 2013 01:37
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vote_no posted:First on my list of 50mm lenses to buy is the f/1.2 AI-S, but I never see anyone in this thread recommending it. Is there a reason for that? It's a niche lens. It's expensive and heavy and not sharp across the whole field wide open (which is why you own a f/1.2 lens). Not that it's a bad lens, but unless you really need that extra 1/2 - 1 stop the cost-benefit usually tips to the 50/1.8 or 50/1.4.
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Dec 3, 2013 02:14
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HolyDukeNukem posted:My guess is it's the how the processor builds the image and accounts for noise. Nikon also says it's the same image processor as the D4.
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Dec 12, 2013 04:52
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emotive posted:One of my local camera shops has a D600 that they claim was just serviced at Nikon and upgraded to D610 specs. Does that sound "normal"? It looks like the major difference between the D600 and D610 is the shutter, which got a minor upgrade, so I guess it's plausible Nikon put the new shutter in while replacing it and then flashed it to modern specs. I don't see any other references to that process anywhere though.
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Dec 27, 2013 17:48
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Ezekiel_980 posted:Spent the day playing with a FM2 a coworker was kind enough to let me try before I consider buying and got the film developed just to make sure there was no light leaks or other problems with it. I was impressed every frame was metered perfectly except for two that I forgot to meter and I realized after the fact. This particular one is about 30 years old and it does an astounding job. After a while I found that not having an aperture priority mode wasn't that bad although I'm sure it can be annoying to not have. Also here is the glass that got me started with this nonsense The FM2 is a great camera. It's one of the best "advanced amateur" or "backup pro" bodies ever built. It's got a big, bright viewfinder for easy focusing, and one of the fastest shutters (top speed and flash sync speed) ever put in a film body. There really aren't any "better" bodies - only different mounts and feature sets, all of which trade off something or other. You really can't go up from there, only sideways or down. The nice thing about manual cameras is there's nothing to go wrong. The FM2 is a well-built, light, reliable camera and they don't need any batteries to operate. They are one of the cameras you will be able to repair forever. That can be a problem with some of the 80s electronic cameras - they're not the most reliable electronics in the world, and parts are getting scarce at this point. I had an FG with a bad meter board and it was a writeoff. The meters are technically less "smart" than modern matrix meters, but they work just fine and follow a straightforward logic, so you don't have to second-guess what the matrix meter might be doing. Aperture priority is nice, but not essential to me at least. Zeroing the meter only takes a second. And manual everything is fun because it forces you to set up everything about an image. Fixed lenses (vs zoom) are great for forcing you to consider perspective as a creative element in your image. I'm also a fan of B+W shooting because it teaches you to see contrast rather than color and it encourages you to really focus on your composition. You can buy "chromogenic" film that can be processed at a drug store (Ilford XP2+ or Kodak BW400CN), or you can try doing real B+W film yourself. Real B+W film is cheaper, there's more options, and you can do some really amazing things with custom processing. You do need a room you can black out for a few minutes while you load the film onto the development reels. That can take a few tries to get good at, other than that it's pretty hard to mess up. If I were you I'd get a FM2 (or FM) and shoot the 50mm lens a lot. Look for a cheap no-brand 28mm or 35mm lens at a garage sale or thrift store or something (~$30) because the 80s era zooms were pretty bad. The 135 is fine on the long end, it's a pretty competent portrait or short tele lens, but it's overshadowed by the 105mm f/2.5. The Nikkor 28/2.8 is supposed to be good, or you can get Samyang manual focus lenses. The price difference between the FM2 and the FM3A is $350 ($425 for the FM), and that's a lot of lenses, tripods, brackets, cases, supplies, or other photographic gear. If you can find a cheap Nikkormat FT2/FT3, those are pretty nice too. The FT2 uses rabbit ears (the Samyang is incompatible), the FT3 is AI metering. Earlier models use mercury cells and the zinc-air replacements are a pain. Teleconverters are basically garbage except for specific niche uses, most of which are no longer done on film. KEH is popular around here, they're cheap, their selection is good, and their grading system is extremely stringent. You usually add a grade or two to compare to ebay or B&H/Adorama ratings. They warranty their stuff for 6 months and have a good return policy. If nothing else it's a good price reference for Craigslist or ebay. Their site is awful though. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Mar 9, 2014 |
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Mar 9, 2014 02:08
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JesusDoesVegas posted:Crop vs full frame sensors have got to be the most misunderstood aspect if digital photography. I regularly shoot with a full frame (D700), but lately I've been using a crop sensor (D200) while a couple of our D700s are out for repair. I also learned on crop sensors (D300s and D7000). I never really noticed the difference in practice... but I also never had both on me at the same time. I really don't understand why it matters. EDIT - I do understand the technical meaning of the terms however... The practical differences are relatively straightforward. Full frame sensors are higher-resolution and 2-ish stops better in noise than an equivalent crop sensor and have shallower depth of field. Less noticeable at a glance, they also provide a couple bits of extra color depth, and they are much less subject to the diffraction limit than crop sensors (eg 24mp crop like a D5200 is diffraction-limited at f/5.6). There's also lots of assorted fringe benefits like better viewfinders. It's not a must-have if you can't afford it, but there are very straightforward advantages. Yeah "hurf durf no one NEEDS anything more than a Pentax Q to take a picture  " but there's pretty obvious and noticeable benefits to shooting full frame and that's only going to get more pronounced as time goes on. Our display resolutions have stagnated at 1080p for a long time now and that's finally about to break loose with affordable 4K displays, and it's much more difficult and expensive for smaller sensors to keep up due to diffraction limit issues.
Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 17:01
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Mightaswell posted:It's not that the df is too niche, it's that the df missed the niche. The M9 (and friends) are 100% on point as digital M rangefinders, where the Df totally missed the point and the opportunity to be a digital F(3/A/M/E or whatever ). I always use the Epson R-D1 as an example of what the manual-focus crowd wants. The R-D1 is kind of a piece of poo poo camera, it's literally a digital sensor grafted onto a Cosina Bessa rangefinder body - to the extent that you still need to "wind" every shot in order to cock the fully-mechanical shutter. There's really very few APS-C cameras from 2004 that can still command $750-1000+ prices a decade later. Yet the R-D1 does, because it is one of the few cameras to fill the niche for a simple, manual camera with tactile controls. re: IanTheM, I'm perfectly comfortable with phrasing that as "people want a camera with less features". People want a camera where the core features work in the way they desire, yes, and they're willing to give up dumb features around the edges that they don't care about. The Df rather notoriously does not shoot video, for example. And a lot of the experience in user interface design (and just design in general) tells us that "customizing things any way you want" isn't always a good thing. Generality usually comes at the cost of complexity, which is not a good thing. I'd rather have a camera that has a great interface for taking pictures rather than one that can do everything. Tactile controls are just a solid user interface paradigm, and it's one that has decades of refinement and user experience. Throwing that away is stupid. For the ultimate in user configuration, you should go buy yourself one of those Samsung cameras with the smartphone built in. No tactile controls and it has a computer built in, it's gotta be an awesome camera! Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Jun 28, 2014 |
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Jun 28, 2014 22:54
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emotive posted:I'm having focusing issues and I'm trying to decide whether it's my lens or camera. I can't say for sure but it kind of sounds like an issue with the body. The lens just moves where the body tells it, and it usually either fucks up drastically or not at all. That camera can auto-focus through live-view, right? That should happen through CDAF on the processor rather than PDAF sensors in the viewfinder. If that works OK on stationary targets then you probably have an issue in the autofocus on the body. Maybe the focus screen isn't sitting quite right or something and it's throwing off the PDAF sensor points or something like that, I once installed a focus screen upside down in my Canon 40D and it tripped up the autofocus/confirm sensors kind of like that. That would matter a lot at infinity but not a whole bunch up close.
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Jun 30, 2014 21:36
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Delivery McGee posted:As a photojournalist, boxing, small-venue concerts/stage performances, the county fair, and general indoor ambient-light stuff come to mind as well. Pretty much anything where a sane person would use flash, but you don't want the subject floating in a black void. Also structure fires/wrecks at night, lit only by the fire and/or A good f/1.4 lens can get you usable shots in virtually any environment if you're willing to push the ISO hard - even on film. Modern digital sensors are absurd when combined with these wide apertures. I bet a Samyang 35/1.4 and a split-prism focus screen would own on a big-viewfinder flagship FF camera. Nikon's got the best support for Samyang lenses and being on Canon I always wanted to try that. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 02:04
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8th-snype posted:I just hate zoom lenses. I don't care how good they are, I have always used primes and always will. Having discrete focal lengths forces you to utilize perspective as a composition thing. And in a technical sense, you really don't NEED every single mm of FL covered, and primes are faster and cheaper per dollar of camera equipment. Sure, a Nikkor 70-200 2.8 is almost as sharp as a 180/2.8 - but it costs like 3-4x as much for the equivalent functionality. And some fast primes, like a 35/1.4, just can't be replaced by zooms. It's really only recently that modern zooms have even remotely begun to compete with good primes.
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Oct 6, 2014 04:14
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SoundMonkey posted:Even if I somehow hosed up focus, that doesn't forgive the purple. Assuming you hosed up focus, it could be some longitudinal chromatic abberation.
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Oct 9, 2014 04:37
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vote_no posted:Yeah, I also picked up the 50 1.2 recently against the advice of this thread, and I'm regretting it a little bit. The 50 1.8D is just so awesome for $100, so the few occasions where the 1.2 outshines it aren't really worth the extra money. If you want a really high-end fast-50 type lens, the Sigma 50/1.4 Art is the obvious choice nowadays. It pretty well stomps anything that isn't a Zeiss Otus 55/1.4, and it compares very favorably with that lens in terms of performance, features, and price.
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Oct 31, 2014 21:23
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Xabi posted:I've got a fever and it feels like the only prescription is a FM2n with the 28mm f/2.8 AI-s. Does that sound like a good idea? Assuming you want a manual-focus body with a 28mm lens, then yes. Those are both great pieces of kit. I'd also throw out buying a Pentax MX with a K28/3.5 as another similar high-quality combo. If you want to cheap out, consider a Nikkormat. They're a  lesser model than the Nikon F system camera, but they are still crazy overbuilt for amateur usage and do have big, bright viewfinders. The FT2 takes alkaline batteries and can be had in BGN condition for the princely sum of $16. The FM2 is a bit nicer in some respects, but the basic FM2 starts at $150 ($162 for a FM2n) and goes up from there.Also - my standard plug for Samyang lenses. They beat the pants off all vintage lens designs (as well as most modern ones) at bargain-basement prices, with the catch being there's no autofocus. They make a 24mm f/1.4 and a 35/1.4, both of which are optically equal or better to the modern Canon/Nikon equivalents. The 35/1.4 can be had used for <$300-350 depending on mount, and the 24/1.4 goes for about $525 new. Unfortunately they don't make a 28mm - I wish they would, because 28mm is as wide as I like to go on film/FF.
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Dec 13, 2014 23:35
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